Okanagan Chefs

“When you were a kid, fun was when you piled in the car with your family and a few friends and went to the ice cream shop for a cone. Now, fun is when you pile into the car with a few friends and your significant other and head out for an afternoon of wine tastings at the local boutique wineries,” says Jeremy Luypen, Executive Chef at Passa Tempo restaurant at Spirit Ridge. He’s speaking from a perspective of a certain amount of privilege, but not necessarily the silver spoon variety. Rather, the privilege comes from choosing to live in a region wealthy with grape vines and dotted with boutique wineries, and knowing how to make full use of the bounty he finds within his reach.

The Okanagan is a valley whose bounty and beauty stare you in the face, but which many can be blind to, or make themselves blind to. Again, it comes down to a matter of perspective. “Every winery in the valley makes at least two or three good wines. At least two or three. The thing to do is to figure out, by going to the wineries’ tasting rooms or getting together with friends for tastings, which ones you like,” advises Luypen. “Wine tastings are fun,” he adds, “It’s a chance for you and your girlfriend to go out without going to a nightclub.”

Wine Tastings With Friends

During the winter he and his friends have been “growing their wine community,” he explains. What they do is hold wine tastings twice a month on Sundays. They invite about 15-20 people who each show up with a bottle of wine and then they do blind tastings. “We tried 20 Chardonnays one night. We had 10 new world, 10 old world. All different price points. It’s fun to watch a $25 bottle of Chardonnay win over something that’s more expensive simply because people like it,” he says. They did one similarly with champagne where his friends brought bottles ranging in price points from $375 on down to $27. “The $27 bottle of bubbly from South Africa won,” he recounted, impressed by the surprise outcome.

Wine tastings are a favorite topic of this accomplished chef who is currently getting additional certification as a sommelier. He says he’s fond of explaining to his Mom that, “Drinking wine is part of my job description” and also adds that Valley resident Ingo Grady, the wine educator at Mission Hill, is “One of the smartest people I know when it comes to wine.”

Jeremy has a couple of simple, basic pointers when it comes to food and wine pairings. He advises that when you serve a complex meal, couple it with simple wine. When you have complex wine, serve a simple meal. “Out of every meal and every glass of wine, there’s always only ever going to be one that’s going to be the star. Either the wine or the food,” he explains.

Sablefish, Passa Tempo Restaurant

Okanagan Culinary Culture

The years this Okanagan College Culinary Arts graduate spent in Calgary at the Chicago Chophouse taught him a few tricks, as much in people management skills as in cooking. “I’ve read at least as many books on psychology and philosophy as I have cookbooks,” explains Luypen who also currently teaches courses at Okanagan College. He attributes the loyalty he inspires in his kitchen team to people skills. “Show them a lot of respect, take an interest in their lives and their families, and they’ll reward you with hard work,” says Luypen, who recalls a young man he once hired when he ran the Hotel El Dorado’s dining room in Kelowna who cleaned hundreds of mussels every night for two months for the 490-seat restaurant. “After two months we promoted him, knowing that whatever I asked him to do in the kitchen, he’d do.”

Luypen also speaks fondly about the culture that has sprung up among the Chefs in the Okanagan Valley. “Chefs in the Valley are becoming so much fun,” says Luypen, “We’re making guest appearances in each other’s restaurants, doing Iron Chef cook-offs and teaming up for Wine Dinners.” During the years that Luypen was at Calgary’s Chicago Chophouse, Ned Bell was across the way at the Vintage Chophouse. A friendly rivalry between the two Executive Chefs continues today, when both once again find themselves working in the same culinary community.

“We’ll do wine dinners, for example, where all the ingredients are the same and the wine pairings are the same, and then it’s up to the chefs to put their distinguishing touch on the dishes. Lobster, for example, people often think there’s only one way to prepare a lobster. But in fact there are more options than just boiling it, especially depending on what wine you are asked to pair it with,” explains Luypen. This is where a chef can really show his artistic as well as culinary skills and that extra talent, that je ne sais quois, that comes with the most intuitive of culinary masters.

Luypen is the last to take the profession too seriously, however. “Chef jackets look like a straight jacket for a reason,” he’ll tell you with a laugh. And then in the next moment, in all somberness, will tell you that the hardest part of the job is “telling your kid you can’t be at his hockey games,” because of the brutal hours that go along with being a Head Chef.

Passa Tempo

Five weeks into his Passa Tempo gig, and Luypen is already very happy with his move. The restaurant’s capacity has much fewer seatings than his previous job at the Hotel Eldorado.

Kettle Valley And Gewurz Slushes

Take, for example, when you get him onto the topic of the Naramata Bench. He’s got lots of favorites out in this exquisite little area that fronts the Lake (wine! afterall!) but don’t even get him started on Kettle Valley Winery and their Gewurz slushes. “One day my friends and I had had a long day of wine tasting where we’d started at 11 and gone until 5, stopping only for lunch. Our last stop on the Naramata Bench was Kettle Valley which is at the very end. Basically it’s this lady who sells her wine out of her garage. She offered us the absolute best Gewurz slushes – it was something like 35 degrees out that afternoon and she just blended us all up these fantastic Gewurztraminer slushes and we sat around her plastic picnic table and drank down those ice cold slushes. It was absolutely the best!”

That’s what he loves most about his valley, he says. It’s that you can go from the imposing magnificence of a Mission Hill, even the tasteful elegance of a Quail’s Gate and then on over to the humbleness of a Kettle Valley at the end of the Naramata Bench – and all experiences will be equally as exquisitely memorable – gratifying in their own way.

Another area on his favorites page is the section of North Okanagan where there’s a triumvirate of Gray Monk, Arrowleaf Cellars and Ex Nihilo. “They have put together the ultimate wedding package,” he says “You can literally walk between each of the wineries. Start off at Arrowleaf where their plantation perch and rolling green hills overlook Okanagan Lake, making it a perfect setting for a wedding; then walk over to Ex Nihilo Vineyards for some wine tasting and tapas and top it off at Gray Monk estates, also a walkable only few hundred yards away, with an excellent dinner,” he says, explaining that Ex Nihilo is affiliated with the Rolling Stone winery out of Napa and has built out a “beautiful tasting room.”

Sounds to us like there’s summers – and seasons – of fun to be had with Okanagan Food And Wine. PassaTempoRestaurant.

****************************************************************

“Rod Butters is the consummate Canadian-born, Canadian-trained, Canadian chef, the kind that will eventually- and not all that far down the road – create what we’ll come to call Canadian cuisine.” – Jurgen Gothe, Food and Arts Critic

The Okanagan Valley is bursting with culinary talent.

What’s your specialty?

Just nibbling on the local cuisine reveals this as self-evident. And because the valley is fast becoming known as the nation’s breadbasket, it’s easy to indulge in locally sourced and fresh, seasonal ingredients.

Rod Butters

Butters has shared the kitchen with such admired chefs as Kerry Sear at Four Seasons and Bernard Casavant of Château Whistler, whose similar philosophies of using local farm-fresh products and their own home-grown herbs and vegetables influenced him greatly.

Rod then went on to open the world famous Wickaninnish Inn, Tofino as Chef de Cuisine in 1996. His innovative cuisine and high service standards quickly helped the Inn’s Pointe Restaurant attain the internationally recognized Relais & Chateaux designation.

After a year long journey around the world in 2000, he returned home to BC to share his culinary experiences and open Fresco Restaurant & Lounge in Kelowna. As Chef /Proprietor, and the current President of the Okanagan Chefs Association, Rod has been instrumental in promoting the growth of culinary tourism in the Okanagan.

Since opening its doors in June 2001, Fresco Restaurant & Lounge is proud to have been awarded the following prestigious achievements among others:

Four Diamond Award 2002 – 2007: awarded by AAA North America.

The importance of Rod’s commitment to establishing regional BC cuisine has earned him international respect. Long before it became “trendy” to serve regional food, Rod has always been committed to this effort. He has always maintained the importance of “giving back” to the industry, and this is attested to by the long list of current successful culinarians that he has mentored and inspired.

Chérie Du Vin♥ – Wine Gossip *Tips*Pairings*New Releases – Subscribe

Local Food And Wine

by Paige DonnerFor our 34th Episode of Paris GOODfood+wine, we focus on the Marché des Enfants Rouges located in Paris' Upper Marais as Julie Collas, star of the one-woman show, OMG, She's Parisienne!, takes us on a walk through this fabled Paris covered market. We then turn to Evelyn de Pontbriand, the president of Savennières AOC in the Loire Va […]

by Paige DonnerFor our January Paris GOODfood+wine show we're talking all about wine. This show's inspiration came from the announcement that Steven Spurrier was resuscitating L'Académie du Vin. So, of course, I reached out to his longtime friend here in Paris, Mark Williamson, owner of the legendary Willi's Wine Bar, to get the scoop. He […]

by Paige DonnerEpisode 32 of Paris GOODfood+wine is all about coffee. But not just any coffee - these are two of Paris' premier specialty coffee roasters and their passion for coffee transcends the everyday ordinary cup o' joe...Click HERE to WATCH VIDEO http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhXBk5ifRgU Cafe. Coffee. Cafeotheque. Cafeologie. Terres de Caf […]

by Paige DonnerChristmastime is the perfect time to enjoy a bottle of AOC Barsac, a French appellation devoted to the production of sweet wine, with a distinguishing accent of freshness. Château Coutet is one of the region's outstanding wine producers and what's more, this French wine has soul. Mind you, many French wines do. Have soul that is. But […]

by Paige DonnerOne bottle of Champagne requires the equivalent of all the fruit from a single vine.Grands Marques & Maisons de Champagnes A few things these two different champagnes, from very different houses, have in common is that the Chardonnay used in each comes exclusively from the Côte des Blancs, and the best of the Côte des Blancs at that: Mesn […]

by Paige DonnerThis episode of Paris GOOD food+wine, our season 4 kick-off, is devoted to my very favorite topic, food+wine pairings.When I'm walking my clients through my food+wine pairing seminar, Perfect Pairings food+wine here in Paris, I always tell them that together, when you do a proper food+wine pairing, The Whole is Greater Than the Sum of Its […]

​by Paige DonnerHost-Producer Paris GOOD food + wine Looking to inspire the next generation of food+wine entrepreneurs, Paris GOOD food + wine takes a closer look at French and European food + wine companies that began as single-visionary entrepreneurs.A rural English potato farmer who turned his potato chips into a global brand (Tyrrell's); a Bordeaux […]

by Paige Donner (all photos copyright 2017 Paige Donner)As Bordeaux's very first wine château, is it any wonder that Haut-Brion still ranks with such stature in the world's profile of wines and wine estates? Well, a measured answer would be both yes, and no. ​It's not a given that a wine or a wine estate with such deep-roots and a glorious pas […]

by Paige DonnerOne of the World's Best Chefs, Mauro Colagreco,│ and Urban Rooftop Gardening in Paris ​ For this episode of Paris GOOD food + wine, we have with us one of the world's top chefs, namely Mauro Colagreco. Chef Colagreco's restaurant, Mirazur, near the Italian border in the South of France, was ranked the world's Number 4 Best […]

by Paige DonnerMove over MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), Bordeaux has once again rolled out its Oscar picks in time for summer. But in good Bordeaux taste, these Oscars have nothing to do with films, and everything to do with good wine.In its 7th year now, each spring, 100 women in Bordeaux get together and blind taste hundreds of whites, rosés […]

Okanagan Food And Wine – Search

by Paige Donner For our 34th Episode of Paris GOODfood+wine, we focus on the Marché des Enfants Rouges located in Paris’ Upper Marais as Julie Collas, star of the one-woman show, OMG, She’s Parisienne!, takes us on a walk through this fabled Paris covered market. We then turn to Evelyn de Pontbriand, the president […]

(by Anonymous Wine Lover) Do you have feelings of inadequacy? Do you suffer from shyness? Do you sometimes wish you were more assertive? Do you sometimes feel stressed? If you answered yes to any of these questions, ask your doctor or pharmacist about Cabernet Sauvignon! (*Disclaimer we are not advocating alcohol consumption and certainly not […]

by Paige Donner For our January Paris GOODfood+wine show we’re talking all about wine. This show’s inspiration came from the announcement that Steven Spurrier was resuscitating L’Académie du Vin. So, of course, I reached out to his longtime friend here in Paris, Mark Williamson, owner of the legendary Willi’s Wine Bar, to get the scoop. […]

Originally posted on Local Food And Wine: by Paige Donner If you listen to any of the 200+ public radio stations that are Pacifica Radio Network affiliates in the United States, be sure to catch our Paris GOODfood+wine latest podcast. This week’s featured show on Sprouts is Caféotheque, all about the coffee culture in Paris,…

Originally posted on Local Food And Wine: by Paige Donner (sponsored post) Looking to liven up your holiday season party-hosting scene? Try this newest sparkling tea wine cocktail recipe suggested by a savvy mixologist here in Paris… Start with a Crémant de Bordeaux (you can also use your sparkling wine of choice). Leave at room…

Originally posted on Local Food And Wine: by Paige Donner Christmastime is the perfect time to enjoy a bottle of AOC Barsac, a French appellation devoted to the production of sweet wine, with a distinguishing accent of freshness. Château Coutet is one of the region’s outstanding wine producers and what’s more, this French wine has…

Originally posted on Local Food And Wine: by Paige Donner Every year American expats in Paris brace for another Thanksgiving with or without all the fixin’s. The lucky few get to go home for turkey, gravy, stuffing and cranberry sauce, and the other lucky few get to have family come over to enjoy the holiday…

Originally posted on Local Food And Wine: NEW YORK, Nov. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ — Wines of Southwest France is delighted to announce it has been named 2017 Wine Region of the Year by the Wine Enthusiast Magazine. This outstanding distinction is given each year as part of the Wine Star Awards to the region that has made an exemplary contribution to the… […]

Originally posted on Local Food And Wine: by Paige Donner The leaves are falling, the clocks have been turned back…Autumn is here in all its colorful beauty with Winter just on the horizon… A poem I saw recently by Toulouse-Lautrec goes something like this: Autumn est le printemps d’hiver, or Autumn is the springtime of…